1. Field of Art
The present invention generally relates to the field of telephony and specifically to enabling caller identification for restricted mobile devices.
2. Background of the Invention
Users of mobile devices (e.g., cellular phones and tablet computers) can send and receive telephone calls and text messages to and from a wide range of telephone numbers. Many mobile devices are capable of saving and accessing information related to telephone calls and text messages. A mobile device may include an address book that lists contacts stored by a user of the device along with telephone numbers and other information about the contacts. The mobile device may also store a history of telephone numbers corresponding to outbound and inbound calls, and may store a history of sent and received text messages. The user can use this stored information in order to screen incoming communications. However, if additional information about a telephone number of an incoming call is not stored on the user's mobile device, the mobile device often shows only the number of the incoming call. In such a case, the user might not know or recognize the number and therefore have trouble appropriately screening the call.
In addition, some mobile devices have restricted operating systems which block third-party applications from accessing the phone number or other caller information for incoming and outgoing communication involving the mobile device. Thus, it is difficult for third-party applications to provide caller information services on such devices.